Rufus Leonard brands witness protection charity

Rufus Leonard has created the identity and website for Witness Confident, a new independent charity that champions witnesses of violent crime.

As well as supporting witnesses of all violent crimes, the organisation also aims to identify common problems and lobby to help change the witness reporting system for the better.

Witness Confident, which launches today, has been set up by founding director Guy Dehn, who also founded Public Concern at Work, an independent authority on public-interest whistleblowing.

Rufus Leonard created the branding for PCW around 15 years ago, after getting to know Dehn when he worked at the National Consumer Council.

Dehn approached the consultancy directly to create the Witness Confident identity. Rufus Leonard carried out the work on a pro bono-basis, and chief executive Neil Svensen is chairman of the organisation.

Svensen says the logo ‘was expressed as a stamp, a device that serves as a seal of confidence that can easily be applied to images of all sorts of different people’.

He adds, ‘We wanted it to be flexible enough to work on legal documents and also on publicfacing campaigns.’ Svensen says he also hopes the logo could be used for guerrilla-style clean graffiti campaigns. Dehn describes the identity as ‘very powerful’ and ‘a brilliant idea’.

Rufus Leonard is also working on a website, www.witnessconfident.org, and digital initiatives for the organisation, such as using Google Maps for witness alerts. Svensen says, ‘One of the aims of the charity is to get the witness system to embrace change, including new technological change.’

He adds, ‘Socially, obviously it’s a really good thing to be involved in, and it is from a business point of view too, as we= will be using new technology.’ Witness Confident is supported by the Nuffield Foundation, the Allen Lane Foundation and private donors.